The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of apple tree, specifically to the Super Jon strain of Jonathan apple tree.
I discovered my new variety of apple tree in my cultivated apple orchard located at Fruitland, Id. At the time of my discovery I was growing in my orchard a block of trees of the Jonnee variety of Jonathan apples (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 2,934).
While on a routine inspection of the trees, during the middle part of August, I noticed on one of the Jonnee apple trees a single sport limb bearing apples colored bright red and matured to a hard-ripe eating condition. This limb and its fruit were unique on the parent tree and, indeed, throughout the entire block of Jonnee apple trees since the fruit on all the other limbs of the parent tree and on all of the other trees of the orchard block was either green, or but slightly colored, and by no means fully colored and matured to a hard-ripe eating condition.
The fruit borne by the sport limb in question was colored a bright red and ready for market, even at this critical early date which was from 5 to 10 days earlier than the date of ripening of the fruit borne by the remaining limbs of the parent Jonnee tree, and of the remaining Jonnee trees of the orchard block.
Continued observation of the sport limb mutation over a period of two or three weeks indicated that the condition of the fruit remained stable, although its color gradually darkened to a deeper red.
I subsequently made cuttings from the sport limb in question and reproduced the same by graftings made in my Fruitland, Id. orchard. Continued observation of the original sport limb and the graftings made therefrom confirmed the early maturing and development of fruit color as described above. I have observed that these characteristics persist through the third generation.